On the First Lady’s Speech

I think Tom Junod’s characterization of the First Lady’s speech is exactly right.

“Republican commentators,” he writes, “spoke almost winsomely of Ann Romney’s need to humanize Mitt Romney; but no Democratic commentator could speak of the necessity of “Americanizing” Barack Obama without indulging the worst instincts of the American electorate.”

In this context the style and content of the speech are easier to make sense of. The background radiation of racial prejudice makes her remarks more than predictable populist appeals; less about demonstrating that she and Barak understand the every-family and its problems than about trying to help the every-family try to understand them.

In Junod’s post he mentions a conversation with “members of the demographic said to be implacably hostile to Barack Obama.”

“There was no way around it, they said — he wasn’t an American, even if he happened to be born here. And that Michelle Obama —“

“What about Michelle Obama?” I asked.

“Well, don’t you think she’s a racist?” one of them said.

“A racist? What has she ever said or done to indicate that she’s a racist?”

“She doesn’t have to say anything. You can tell by the look in her eyes.”

This sentiment was summed up last week in one older lady’s reaction to Ann Romney’s speech in Tampa when asked to comment on the President,

“I just don’t like him. Can’t stand to look at him. I don’t like his wife — she’s far from the First Lady. It’s about time we get a First Lady in there who acts like a First Lady and looks like a First Lady.”

You’ll remember that back during the 2008 election, then Republican contender John McCain had to talk another old white lady down when she claimed Obama was a terrorist. And that was before the Tea Party, or the momentary cottage industry the middle-American revolt gave birth to.

Remember Glen Beck’s 9/12 get together back in 2010? Spectacles of racial resentment there were in abundance. As John Jeremiah Sullivan recounted at the time,

“Standing on a garbage can and commanding a lot of attention is a strange figure. A small man or woman—you can’t see enough of its body to tell—holds a handmade sign that reads YES I AM. The creature wears an Obama mask. When people holler “Obama!” it looks in their direction and does a little shuffle. Atop the Obama mask sits a fake gold crown. Obama thinks he’s a king! (Is that what YES I AM means? Yes, I am a king?) The king has on a bright purple pimp’s coat with faux-leopard-skin trim. An African king? It looks like something you’d see and turn away from in a southern antiques shop. We do turn away, after taking a pic.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates has deciphered this narrative in extensive, intimate detail. It remains one of the more compelling political theories of the last four years because, unlike most others, it explains Republican obstruction and reactionary malice in addition to the Democrat’s incomplete, right of center legislative agenda.

In such circumstances, the First Lady’s speech becomes all the more impressive and emotionally compelling. In it, she tells a story about young couple negotiating their careers and family, their relationship to each other and to the numerous communities to which they belong (religious, political, racial, etc.)

Garance Franke-Ruta outlines just a few of the moments when the First Lady attempts to “reveal” the first family as a truly American one. But the most effect theme, in my opinion, was the motif generational progress, of wanting to leave your children with better opportunities than you yourself had access to. This draws a stark contrast to the Romney’s who are several generations removed from concerns like these.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Democrats have been pushing the auto-bailout as a signature achievement so forcefully, and that last night the First Lady relayed this anecdote,

“You see, even though back then Barack was a Senator and a presidential candidate … to me, he was still the guy who’d picked me up for our dates in a car that was so rusted out, I could actually see the pavement going by through a hole in the passenger side door…”

Can you picture Romney driving a jalopy? Ever? Romney never had to worry about a plant closing and leaving him laid off, about what would happen if his car broke down and he couldn’t get to his job, about going to pick up your date in a rusted old clunker. It’s a difference in upbringing and in privilege which, rather than being used to emphasize class warfare as other speeches last night tried to, but rather to emphasize (in a positive light) that Barak and Michelle Obama are an American family with American concerns (and what could be more fundamentally American than the imagery of automobiles and the factory workers who make them?)

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I write about comics, video games and American politics. I fear death above all things. Just below that is waking up in the morning to go to work. You can follow me on Twitter at @ethangach or at my blog, gamingvulture.tumblr.com. And though my opinions aren’t for hire, my virtue is.

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For the record, I can’t imagine Romney driving a junker or staying at a Motel 6. Romney’s always lived on a different plane than most Americans; all attempts to portray him as anything different invariably ring hollow.

I read the linked article and was struck by the reactions the author’s family had to Obama. The older woman could easily be my mother, who’s hatred of Michelle Obama is so visceral it took her months to remember that the First Lady and I share a first name. I’m pretty sure that, if she watched the speech at all, she didn’t see the same speech I saw. Ditto for my father. I’ll spare you their commentary, but their inner racism has emerged with a vengeance. My father’s even talked about buying a gun if Obama loses, as he expects violent race riots to erupt.

I suspect you’ll get the usual responses from the usual subjects about racializing the election. But to pretend that race is not an issue for some not insignificant portion of the population is to put on blinders. It’s been a Republican trope to present Democratic candidates as somehow less than American (e.g. the “Frenchness” of John Kerry) but the attack on Obama has been far more vicious than in past elections because of his color.Report

Obama reeks of cool. The republicans distrust cool, particularly the backwoods sort. It’s not always about race, per se. If Obama acted as rich and stately as an old lord, you’d see less viciousness. He acts smart — and a lot of people got a problem with that.

This is not to say that a good deal of thsoe people don’t also have a problem with race — but to limit it to race is to miss the big picture.Report

And that’s where the Ivory Tower misses the peasants’ mind completely. Peasants know precisely how much obeisance is due a king, and their respect is given solely due to the person’s hereditary status.

Such things, I’m certain, are far more important in some parts of America than others.Report

As Benjamin Franklin intimated, we don’t exist on any one plane, but are constantly in a state of traversal.

The point is where did you come from, and what does that say about what you understand of people and their circumstances, and the degree to which one’s compassion and ability for empathy can be predicted based on their life experiences.Report

In comparison, I thought Michelle’s speech was better than Ann’s, but I think this was partially because Ann had a different job.

For appealing to the base, they both did equally well. For appealing to the middle, I thought Michelle did a better job of making her and Barack seem like “just folks” than Ann did, but I think that’s because they’re a lot closer to being “just folks”, so the comparison isn’t really fair.Report

“She spoke movingly about their early years–about how a young Barack Obama drove a car that was “rusted out” and found his furniture “in a dumpster,” how they both came from families that had to “scrape by.” Her fairy tale–however well-delivered–was one great, big, colorful lie.

Both Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama began their adult lives with a leg up on the rest of America. They attended elite schools: Michelle went to Whitney Young, the public magnet school for Chicago’s upper class, while Barack attended Punahou, the private prep school for the top stratum of Hawaiian society. They were accepted to Ivy League schools despite undistinguished credentials, and both attended Harvard Law School.

“[B]elieve it or not, when we were first married, our combined monthly student loan bills were actually higher than our mortgage,” Michelle said. That sounds like a raw deal–but in fact reflects their fortunate circumstances. They had both just graduated from a very expensive law school, and their combined income from cushy law firm jobs dwarfed the repayments. Barack also soon enjoyed a second salary from the University of Chicago. They had expensive tastes, reflected in the $277,500 two-bedroom condo they bought in 1993–a high price even by today’s standards. Several years later, they moved into their $1.65 million mansion in Hyde Park–with the help of fraudster Tony Rezko. Barack often told a story of hardship on the campaign trail in 2008 about having his credit card declined–once. The fact that he thought this counted as real hardship speaks volumes.

As her husband moved onto the national political stage, Michelle Obama began to enjoy a lavish lifestyle at taxpayer expense, directly and indirectly. When Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, he obtained a $1 million earmark for the University of Chicago Hospital–and his wife’s salary as Vice President for Community Affairs jumped from $121,910 to $316,962. Her job: pushing poor, uninsured patients to other hospitals.

As First Lady, Michelle Obama has lived high on the hog while the rest of the country has suffered through an extraordinary recession. In 2010, she and her entourage decamped to Spain for a lavish vacation. That summer, the Obamas encouraged Americans to visit the Gulf coast after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which threatened tourism in the region. They promptly jetted off to Maine for their own summer holiday.”

I generally agree that Barack’s childhood deprivations are somewhat exaggerated. However little money he had, his mom was still a highly educated professional, and his grandparents were pretty solidly upper-middle class. But it’s unquestionable that Obama’s life experience would have exposed him pretty intimately to actual deprivation, and so I think the contrast Obama’s drawn between himself and Romney on this score is not entirely unwarranted. And Michelle came from an honest-to-goodness working-class family on the South Side. Posting this kind of article doesn’t exactly make you look good, Tom.Report

I for one am glad this site has a Tom, so that it doesn’t turn into a mutual admiration circle jerk society, otherwise known as Daily Kos. But I’m more than certain that a ‘certain’ class of person on this site would like nothing more than an echo chamber.Report

Most blog communities have a similar refrain. “Better trolls please”. Now, to prebut the inevitable tu quoque, I am well aware that my interactions fairly paint me as a troll, or at least trollish to people. So I apply the refrain to myself. Dear FSM, send a better me, please and thank you. Grant us humble trolls the ability to refrain from turning every thread into the same conversation. Allow us to resist the siren call of logical fallacy.Report

Look good to whom, Robert? Obamans? It’s devastating to the Obama myth. In fact, it was the African American community who gave him the business about not being “authentically” black, that he grew up pretty much as a middle-class white dude. Which he did.

As for Barack and Michelle’s $200+K condo as newlyweds, like please, man. Just folks? None that I know.Report

TVD, I didn’t deny that Obama grew up with a fair amount of privilege. In fact, I explicitly agreed with part of your assessment. But I disagree that Obama’s actual background explodes the convention narrative. Sure, the characterization of Obama’s background at the DNC does a fair amount of cherry-picking, but it’s TRUE that Obama has been a lot more intimate with deprivation and the struggle to overcome it than Romney. And for you and Breitbart.com to insinuate that Michelle was some kind of fortunate daughter is pretty damn unseemly.Report

Does Barack Obama feel your pain more than Mitt Romney? Not self-evident. That’s the myth part.

Hey, I think Barack Obama [and Michelle] did well regardless of what advantages they enjoyed. You still have to get through school. But a Ivy League education and law degree, gigs at Sidley & Austin, a tippy-top national law firm, and it’s don’t cry for me, Argentina.Report

Of course you can bring up Romney’s charity work. I’ve written elsewhere about how I think Romney gets short shrift for the work he did with his Church. But I still think it’s fair to wonder whether Romney’s rather narrow personal experiences render his “I’ll lift you up” tendencies more paternalistic than the Obamas’ “You can follow our path.”Report

TVD, if you read the piece that you presented critically, you would note that it makes certain implicit claims about the timeline of the happy couple’s courtship and eventually marriage without actually supporting them factually. It wants to imply that the FLOTUS lied – and succeeds in communicating the implication to people like yourself, who describe it as “devastating,” but it does not actually present evidence of a lie. It refrains from noting, for instance, that by the time the newlyweds moved into their upscale Hyde Park condo, they had been seeing each other for four years. I’ve known personally the sons and daughters of authentically very wealthy families – for real Beverly Hills 90210 elite – who went through periods of struggling to make ends meet, who possessed dumpster furniture and drove crappy cars, worked as waiters, and so on, so there’s nothing about the recitation that facially establishes the untruth of the story or any aspect of it as regards these markedly less privileged individuals, even if they did happen to catch several breaks that maybe you and I never did, and then went on, as their careers progressed, to join the golden circle through the balance of the ’90s. The rest of the “devastation” includes the kind of attempt to stoke resentment that, if it was deployed against one of your heroes, you would unstintingly reject as classist, divisive, un-American, and downright satanic.Report

CK, I withdrew the “lie” part. As I said to Robert, I was skimming. The facts are sound, though. They were married in 1992 and had a $200K condo by 2003. Sidley & Austin pays well.

As for the rest, there’s an assumption that Barack is more “feeling” than Mitt that needs serious questioning. That’s the relevant issue, not this “Our house was so small, the mice were stoop-shouldered” vaudeville.

TVD didn’t even withdraw the “lie” part, he just said it was “at least a violation of civility.” So TVD was caught advancing a lie, and when caught, couldn’t give a repudiation that wasn’t totally mealy-mouthed. I’m all for ideological diversity on this site, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a higher standard from someone who is obviously capable of it.Report

It references true facts that are irrelevant to the Obamas’ claims. The Obamas don’t dispute that they eventually became successful, only that that they didn’t start out that way, and that even after their educations they still lived elements of their modest pasts. You say the Breitbart article is all true, but calling Michelle’s characterization of her background a “great, big, colorful lie” is itself a patent untruth.Report

I admit to only skimming the thing, as it was a bunch of stuff I’d already confirmed independently.

puts

But it’s all true

in a strange light. It strongly suggests that are willing to testify falsely. How would you know if “it’s all true” if you have only “skimm[-ed] the thing”?

Relying on Breitbart on the basis of a skim, in politically mixed company, already justifies Mr. Greer’s original criticism. It suggests that you either don’t know how those not already fervently committed to your side view the Breitbart sites, or that you don’t care. The former would make you naive. The latter would make you uninterested in persuasion.Report

Here is the [Kids’ State Dinner] menu, which was composted of winning recipes submitted by children for the contest. (via the pool report)

Evidently, those cabbage sloppy joes were thought to be some kind of awesome by some kid somewhere who submitted what turned out to be a winning recipe. (Can’t help but wonder if “composted” was an honest typo or a punny jab.)

Anyhoo, what the 2012 Kids’ State Dinner has to do with either Ma or Pa Obama enjoying lobster on vaca in 2010, I’ve no idea.

I’m not up on this stuff, so I do appreciate that I can count on Mr. Van Dyke for the dish on the Right’s pettiest concerns. He’s got the links. [Gah. Now I’ve got Roxette in my head.]Report

Ann would have done better had she simply acknowledged that she and Mitt never really struggled; they were blessed and extended their blessings through hard work and a bit of good luck. I don’t think there are too many people out there who begrudge them their privileged start in life. Thus, pretending otherwise didn’t ring true and detracted from the rest of her speech. Of course, it was also quite the uphill battle for her to humanize Mitt. Not quite sure she succeeded.Report

Obama (Mrs. too) has long campaigned upon and opined an appreciation for his own blessings as well as the privilege that his own daughters enjoy, all in advocacy of working towards equal opportunity.

There is such a stark contrast in Obama’s and Romney’s narratives. In theory, I’d be flummoxed that this stark contrast weren’t more obvious to a whole lot of folks, except that the particular whole-lot-of-folks it’s not obvious to happen to be either partisan ideologues or [old?] peeps carrying sad baggage.Report

You can’t acknowledge luck. Luck means that success in life is not wholly on merits. If success in life isn’t wholly based on merit, then things like a social safety net are not just the moral thing to do — but the intelligent thing to do.

If bad luck (ie: No fault of your own) can bankrupt you, cripple you, cost you your home or businesss — then very obviously you’d want something like “bad luck insurance”. You know, pay a little when times are good as a hedge against that bad luck. (We call it ‘unemployment insurance’, ‘social security’, ‘Medicare’, ‘food stamps’)

Which is why you often see conservatives stretch and reach to explain how someone obvioiusy unlucky (say, bankrupt and jobless due to sudden case of cancer) is not unlucky, stretching to point to some decision, some act, that makes them “lazy and shiftless”. Their countertops are granite (to name a famous example) which means they’re really not bankrupt.

If merit and merit alone makes success — then helping the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden is just rewarding sloth — and showering the rich with praises is rewarding virtue. If luck is involved, well….then you have to ask questions about “What should the lucky do for the society they lucked out in?” and “Should the lucky pay for things they might one day need, if bad luck strikes them”.

All it would take is a layoff and an serious illness — or car accident — and I’ve gone from productive, middle class citizen to bankrupt, homeless, living off food stamps and dodging medical bills I’d never be able to pay.

FYI — I’m solidly middle class. Have been since I graduated when I was in my early 20s. If I saved, oh, 50% of my income from my first job until now (a good 20 years), I think I’m only a decade short of paying for a week or two in the ICU.

It might work better for a liberal or Democratic President (FDR strikes me as a prime example) but I wonder why few politicians say something like: “Yes I grew up with a lot of advantages that many people do not have. I am very grateful for these advantages but realize that many were an accident of birth. I would like to help even the playing field or make sure that people do not struggle with basic necessities.”Report

Relative to the CRA days when droves of southern Dems morphed into Republicans, the racist DNA of the GOP has evolved: it’s measurably less ugly today (as in less overt) and we really do need the insights of folks like Ta-Nehisi Coates to better understand the insidious nature of it.

Which is as I’ve said elsewhere, that the goal of progressives is not to mitigate the harmful effects of racism, but to eliminate the very mode of thinking that leads to racism. Thoughtcrime ungood.Report

Yes, thoughts and feelings are something that individual people have. Sentiments, on the other hand, don’t have to be held by anyone, meaning that you can never disprove their existence. It may be that no Republican voter you’ve ever met in person has had a racist thought in their head, but you’re still fighting against the sentiment of racism that all Republicans hold as a matter of course.Report

the goal of progressives is not to mitigate the harmful effects of racism, but to eliminate the very mode of thinking that leads to racism.

Huh. I’m not entirely sure what to make of your comment, Mr. Duck. But, it sounds like you’re admitting that the GOP is full of peeps who employ a “mode of thinking that leads to racism”, and on its face I’m inclined to mostly agree with that point.Report

Yes we liberals want to mitigate the effects of racism but there is nothing morally wrong with going for the root of the cause and eliminating the beast itself. Just like the best way to fight crime is to attack the causes of crime (like poverty and lack of opportunity) instead of just locking people up.Report

Religious Institutions. Religious institutions may resume services subject to the following conditions, which apply to churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, interfaith centers, and any other space, including rented space, where religious or faith gatherings are held: 1. Indoor religious gatherings are limited to no more than ten people. 2. Outdoor religious gatherings of up to 250 people are allowed. Outdoor services may be held on any outdoor space the religious institution owns, rents, or reserves for use. 3. All attendees at either indoor or outdoor services must maintain appropriate social distancing of six feet and wear face masks or facial coverings at all times. 4. There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service. 5. Collection plates or receptacles may not be passed to or between attendees. 6. There should be no hand shaking or other physical contact between congregants before, during, or after religious services. Attendees shall not congregate with other attendees on the property where religious services are being held before or after services. Family members or those who live in the same household or who attend a service together in the same vehicle may be closer than six feet apart but shall remain at least six feet apart from any other persons or family groups. 7. Singing is permitted, but not recommended. If singing takes place, only the choir or religious leaders may sing. Any person singing without a mask or facial covering must maintain a 12-foot distance from other persons, including religious leaders, other singers, or the congregation. 8. Outdoor or drive-in services may be conducted with attendees remaining in their vehicles. If utilizing parking lots for either holding for religious services or for parking for services held elsewhere on the premises, religious institutions shall ensure there is adequate parking available. 9. All high touch areas, (including benches, chairs, etc.) must be cleaned and decontaminated after every service. 10. Religious institutions are encouraged to follow the guidelines issued by Governor Hogan.

“There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service,” the order says in a section delineating norms and restrictions on religious services.

The consumption of the consecrated species at Mass, at least by the celebrant, is an integral part of the Eucharistic rite. Rules prohibiting even the celebrating priest from receiving the Eucharist would ban the licit celebration of Mass by any priest.

CNA asked the Howard County public affairs office to comment on how the rule aligns with First Amendment religious freedom and free exercise rights.

Howard County spokesman Scott Peterson told CNA in a statement that "Howard County has not fully implemented Phase 1 of Reopening. We continue to do an incremental rollout based on health and safety guidelines, analysis of data and metrics specific to Howard County and in consultation with our local Health Department."

"With this said," Peterson added, "we continue to get stakeholder feedback in order to fully reopen to Phase 1."

The executive order also limits attendance at indoor worship spaces to 10 people or fewer, limits outdoor services to 250 socially-distanced people wearing masks, forbids the passing of collection plates, and bans handshakes and physical contact between worshippers.

In contrast to the 10-person limit for churches, establishments listed in the order that do not host religious services are permitted to operate at 50% capacity.

In the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, there were hopes that the disease could be treated with a compound called hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). HCQ is a long-established inexpensive medicine that is widely used to treat malaria. It also has uses for treating rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There had been some indications that HCQ could treat SARS virus infections by attacking the spike proteins that coronaviruses use to latch onto cells and inject their genetic material. Initial small-scale studies of the drug on COVID-19 patients indicated some positive effect (in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin). President Trump, in March, promoted HCQ as a game-changer and is apparently taking it as a prophylaxis after potentially being exposed by White House staff.

Initial claims of the efficacy of this therapy were a perfect illustration of why we base decisions on scientific studies and not anecdotes. By late March, Twitter was filled with stories of "my cousin's mother's former roommate was on death's door and took this therapy and miraculously recovered". But such stories, even assuming they are true, mean nothing. With COVID-19, we know that seriously ill people reach an inflection point where they either recover or die. If they died while taking the HCQ regimen, we don't hear from them because...they died. And if they recover without taking it, we don't hear from them because...they didn't take it. Our simian brains have evolved to think that correlation is causation. But it isn't. If I sacrificed a goat in every COVID-19 patient's room, some of them would recover just by chance. That doesn't mean we should start a massive holocaust of caprines.

However, even putting aside anecdotes, there were good reasons to believe the HCQ regimen might work. And given the seriousness of this disease and the desperation of those trying to save lives, it's understandable that doctors began using it for critically ill patients and scientists began researching its efficacy.

Why Trump became fixated on it is equally understandable. Trump has been looking for a quick fix to this crisis since Day One. Denial failed. Closing off (some) travel to China failed. A vaccine is months if not years away. So HCQ offered him what he wanted -- a way to fix this problem without the hard work, tough choices and sacrifice of stay-at-home orders, masks, isolation and quarantine. So eager were they to adopt the quick fix, the Administration made plans to distribute millions of doses of this unproven drug in lieu of taking more concrete steps to address the crisis.[efn_note]Although the claim that Trump stands to profit off HCQ sales does not appear to hold much water.[/efn_note]

This is also why certain fringe corners of the internet became fixated on it. There has arisen a subset of the COVID Truthers that I'm calling HCQ Truthers: people who believe that HCQ isn't just something that may save some lives but is, in fact, a miracle cure that it's only being held back so that...well, take your pick. So that Democrats can wreck the economy. So that Bill Gates can inject us with tracking devices. So that we can clear off the Social Security rolls. And this isn't just a US phenomenon nor is it all about Trump. Overseas friends tell me that COVID trutherism in general and HCQ trutherism in particular have arisen all over the Western World.

It's no accident that the HCQ Truthers seem to share a great deal of headspace with the anti-Vaxxers. It fills the same needs

In both cases, the idea was started by flawed studies. The initial studies out of China and France that indicated HCQ worked were heavily criticized for methodological errors (although note that neither claimed it was a miracle cure). Since then, larger studies have shown no effect.

HCQ trutherism offers an explanation for tragedy beyond the random cruelty of nature. Just as anti-vaxxers don't want to believe that sometimes autism just happens, HCQ Truthers don't want to believe that sometimes nature just releases awful epidemics on us. It's more comforting, in some ways, to think that bad happenings are all part of a plan by shadowy forces.

There is, however, another crazy side that doesn't get as much attention because their crazy is a bit more subtle. These are the people who have decided that, since Trump is touting the HCQ treatment, it must not work. It can not work. It can not be allowed to work. There is an undisguised glee when studies show that HCQ does not work and a willingness to blame HCQ shortages on Trump and only Trump.[efn_note]Not to mention the odd fish tank cleaner poisoning that has nothing to do with him.[/efn_note]

In between the two camps are everyone else: scientists, doctors and ordinary folk who just want to know whether this thing works or not, politics and conspiracy theories be damned. Well, last week, we got a big indication that it does not. A massive study out of the Lancet concluded that the HCQ regimen has no measurable positive effect. In fact, death rates were higher for those who took the regimen, likely due to heart arrhythmias induced by the drug.

So is the debate over? Can we move on from HCQ? Not quite.

First of all, the study is a retrospective study, looking backward at nearly 100,000 cases over the last four months. That's a massive sample that allows one to correct for potential confounding factors. But it's not a double-blind trial, so there may be certain biases that can not be avoided. In response to the publication, a group doing a controlled study unblinded some of their data (that is, they let an independent group look up who was getting the actual HCQ and who was getting a placebo). It did not show enough of a safety concern to warrant ending the study.

It's also worth noting that because this is an unproven therapy, it is usually being used on only the sickest patients (the odd President of the United States aside). It's possible earlier use of the drug, when the body is not already at war with itself, could help.

With those caveats in mind, however, this study at least makes it clear that HCQ is not the miracle cure some fringe corners of the internet are pretending it is. And it should make doctors hesitant in giving to people who already have heart issues.

As you can imagine, this has only fed the twin camps of derangement. The truther arguments tend to fall into the usual holes that truther theories do:

"How can this be a four-month study when we only learned about COVID in January!" The HCQ protocol started being used almost immediately because of previous research on coronaviruses.

"How come all of the sudden this safe medicine that people use all the time is dangerous?!" The side effects of HCQ have been well known for years and have always required consideration and management. They may be showing up more strongly here because it is being given to patients whose bodies are already under extreme stress. Also, azithromycin may amplify some of those side effects.

"They just hate Trump." Not everything is about Donald Trump. If it turned out that kissing Donald Trump's giant orange backside cured COVID, scientists would be the first ones telling people to line up and use chapstick.

The other camp's response has ranged from undisguised glee -- that is, joy at the idea that we won't be saving lives cheaply -- to bizarre claims that Trump should be charged with crimes for touting this unproven therapy.

(A perfect illustration of the dementia: former FDA Head Scott Gottlieb -- who has been a Godsend for objective analysis during the pandemic -- tweeted out the results of the RECOVERY unblinding yesterday morning and noted that it showed no increased safety risk. He was immediately dogpiled by one side insisting he was trying to conceal the miracle cure of HCQ and the other insisting he is a Trumpist doing the Orange Man's dirty work.)

In the end, the lunatics do not matter. Whether HCQ works or not, whether it is used or not, will be mostly determined by doctors and will mostly be based on the evidence we have in front of us. If HCQ fails -- and it's not looking good -- my only response will be massive disappointment. Had HCQ worked, it would have been a gift from the heavens. It is a well-known, well-studied drug that can be manufactured cheaply in bulk. Had it worked, we could have saved thousands of lives, prevented hundreds of thousands of long-term injuries and saved trillions of dollars. That it doesn't appear to work -- certainly not miraculously -- is not entirely unexpected but is also a tragedy.

{C1} The Christian Science Monitor looks at 1918 and how sports handled that pandemic, and the role it played in giving rise to college football.

"That's really what started the big boom of college football in the 1920s," said Jeremy Swick, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame. "People were ready. They were back from war. They wanted to play football again. There weren't as many restrictions about going out. You could enroll back in school pretty easily. You see a great level of talent come back into the atmosphere. There's new money. It started to get to the roar of the Roaring '20s and that's when you see the stadiums arm race. Who can build the biggest and baddest stadium?"

{C2} During times of rapid change, social science is supposed to be able to help lead the way or at least decipher what is going on. Or maybe not...

But while Willer, Van Bavel, and their colleagues were putting together their paper, another team of researchers put together their own, entirely opposite, call to arms: a plea, in the face of an avalanche of behavioral science research on COVID-19, for psychology researchers to have some humility. This paper—currently published online in draft format and seeding avid debates on social media—argues that much of psychological research is nowhere near the point of being ready to help in a crisis. Instead, it sketches out an “evidence readiness” framework to help people determine when the field will be.

{C3} There is a related story about AI - which is predisposed towards tracking slow change over time - is having trouble keeping up.

{C4} The Covid-19 does not bode well for higher education is not news. They may have a lot of difficulty opening up (and maybe shouldn't). An added wrinkle is kids taking a gap year, which is potentially a problem because those most able to pay may be least likely to attend.

{C5} People who can see the faults with abstinence only education fail to see how that logic (We shouldn't give guidance to people doing things we would rather they not do in the first place). Emily Oster argues that the extreme message of public health advocates to Just Stay Home is counterproductive.

When people are advised that one very difficult behavior is safe, and (implicitly or not) that everything else is risky, they may crack under the pressure, or throw up their hands. That is, if people think all activities (other than staying home) are equally risky, they figure they might as well do those that are more fun. If taking a walk at a six-foot distance from a friend puts me at very high risk, why not just have that friend and a bunch of others over for a barbecue? It’s more fun. This is an exaggeration, of course, but different activities carry very different risks, and conscientious civic leaders should actively help people choose among them.

{C6} A look at what canceling the football season will do to the little guys - non-power schools. Ironically, they may sustain less damage due to fewer financial obligations relying on the money that won't be coming in. Be that as it may, Fordham has disestablished its baseball program.

{C7} Bans on evictions and rental spikes could have the main effect of simply pushing out small investors, rather than protecting renters. In a more good-faith economy this would be less of an issue because landlords would work with tenants. Which some are, though I don't have too much faith about it being widespread.

{C8} Three cheers for Nick Saban. Football coaches are cultural leaders of a sort. One is about to become a senator in Alabama, even. What they do matters.

The American college experience for better or for worse revolves around the residency factor. We have turned college into a relatively safe place for young adults to the test the limits of freedom without suffering too many consequences. Better to miss a day of classes because you drank too much than to miss a day of an apprenticeship or job and get fired. College was cut short this semester because of COVID and colleges are freaking out about whether they can open up dorms in the fall. The dorms are big money makers and it is hard to justify huge tuition bucks for zoom lectures even for elite universities. Maybe especially for them. California State University announced that Fall 2020 is going to be largely online. My undergrad alma mater sent out an e-mail blast announcing their plan to reopen in the fall with "mostly" in person classes. The President admitted that the plan was a work in progress but it strikes me as a combination of common sense and extreme wishful thinking. The plan may include:

1. Staggered drop-off days to limit density as we return.

This sounds reasonable but only in a temporary way because eventually everyone will be back on campus, living in dorm rooms together, needing to use communal bathrooms and showers.

2. Students would be tested for COVID-19 on campus at least twice in the first 14 days.

There is nothing wrong with this as long as the testing is available. Our capacity for testing so far in this country has not been great.

3. Anyone experiencing symptoms would be tested immediately. Students who test positive would be cared for in a separate dormitory area where food would be brought to the room and where the student could still access classes remotely.

Nothing wrong here. Outbreaks of certain diseases are not unknown in the college setting. During my senior year, there was an outbreak of a rather nasty strain of gastroenteritis. Other universities have experienced meningitis outbreaks.

4. All students would take their temperature and report symptoms daily.

This one is also reasonable but is going to involve spying on students and coming up with a punishment mechanism. How will they make sure students are not lying?

5. We would also require that socializing be kept to a minimum in the beginning, with proper PPE (masks) and social distancing. As time went on, we would seek to open up more, and students could socialize and eat together in small groups.

I have no idea how they tend for this to happen and it sets of all my lawyer bells for carefully crafted language that attempts to answer a concern or question but also admits "we got nothing." Maybe today's students are more somber and sincere but you are going to have around 500 eighteen year olds who are away from their parents for the first time and another 1500 nineteen to twenty-one year olds who had their semester rudely interrupted and might now be reunited with boyfriends and girlfriends. Are they going to assign eating times for the dining hall and put up solo eating cubicles that get wiped down and disinfected after each use? Assign times to use laundry facilities in each dorm? Cancel the clubs? Cancel performances by the theatre, dance, and music departments?

I am sympathetic to my alma I love it but and realize that a lot of colleges and universities would take a real hit financially without residency. This includes universities with reasonable to very large endowments. Only the ones with hedge fund size endowments would not suffer but the last part of the plain sounds not fully thought out yet even if my college's current President admitted: "Life on campus will not look the same as it did pre-pandemic" The only way i see number 5 working is if requiring is read as "requiring."

Seems that the theory that Covid-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people has very shaky evidence in support of it. Turns out the case this assumption was made from was based on a single woman who infected 4 others. Researchers talked to the 4 patients, and they all said the patient 0 did not appear ill, but they could not speak to patient 0 at the time.

So they finally got to talk to her, and she said she was feeling ill, but powered through with the aid of modern pharmaceuticals.

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Today we couldn’t be happier to announce that Vox Media and New York Media are merging to create the leading independent modern media company. Our combined business will be called Vox Media and will serve hundreds of millions of audience members wherever they prefer to enjoy our work.

In a nation in turmoil, it's nice to have even a small bit of good news:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, the nine-term Republican with a history of racist comments who only recently became a party pariah, lost his bid for renomination early Wednesday, one of the biggest defeats of the 2020 primary season in any state.

In a five-way primary, Mr. King was defeated by Randy Feenstra, a state senator, who had the backing of mainstream state and national Republicans who found Mr. King an embarrassment and, crucially, a threat to a safe Republican seat if he were on the ballot in November.

The defeat was most likely the final political blow to one of the nation’s most divisive elected officials, whose insults of undocumented immigrants foretold the messaging of President Trump, and whose flirtations with extremism led him far from rural Iowa, to meetings with anti-Muslim crusaders in Europe and an endorsement of a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties.

King, you may remember, was stripped of his committee assignments last year when he defended white supremacism. Two years ago, he almost lost his Congressional seat in the general. That is, a seat that Republicans have held since 1986, usually win by double digits and a district Trump carried by a whopping 27 points almost came within a point or two of voting in a Democrat. That's how repulsive King had gotten.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Enjoy retirement, Congressman. Oops. Sorry. In January, it will be former Congressman.

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From the Daily Mail: Deadliest city in America plans to disband its entire police force and fire 270 cops to deal with budget crunch

The deadliest city in America is disbanding its entire police force and firing 270 cops in an effort to deal with a massive budget crunch.

...

The police union says the force, which will not be unionized, is simply a union-busting move that is meant to get out of contracts with current employees. Any city officers that are hired to the county force will lose the benefits they had on the unionized force.

Oak Park police say they are investigating “suspicious circumstances” after two attorneys — including one who served as a hearing officer in several high-profile Chicago police misconduct cases — were found dead in their home in the western suburb Monday night.

Officers were called about 7:30 p.m. for a well-being check inside a home in the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue, near Chicago Avenue, and found the couple dead inside, Oak Park spokesman David Powers said in an emailed statement. Authorities later identified them as Thomas E. Johnson, 69, and Leslie Ann Jones, 67, husband and wife attorneys who worked in Chicago.

The preliminary report from an independent autopsy ordered by George Floyd's family says the 46 year old man's death was "caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain".

The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired the ability of Floyd's diaphragm to function, according to the report.

Dr. Michael Baden and the University of Michigan Medical School's director of autopsy and forensic services, Dr. Allecia Wilson, handled the examination, according to family attorney Ben Crump.

Baden, who was New York's medical examiner in 1978 and 1979, had previously performed independent autopsies on Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer in Staten Island, New York, in 2014 and Michael Brown, who was shot by officers in Ferguson, Missouri, that same year.

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Oddly, the video was dropped by an attorney friend the men, because he thought it would exonerate them. He assumed when people saw Aubrey turn and try to defend himself, everyone would see what they did: a dangerous animal needing to be put down.